Performance.

Has anyone actually confirmed that this thing has the 820? This phone should absolutely smoke my 1520, but I would argue to say its actually slower. It is noticeable in the GUI and apps, but particularly loading windows bridge apps like facebook, instagram, and playing hill climb racing, the device just crawls. Is it a driver issue? Should it all be resolved by the AU?

Honestly if you have kept up with the news HP and MS are still working on optimizing w10m with the elite x3. As such anniversary update has been delayed. Installing it from insider won't help either since it requires new code that's not released yet. Sounds like October is when they plan to have things sorted. Maybe earlier, who knows.

The slowness that you are experience is because of the poor optimization of the windows 10 builds. Also that could effect you more if you are an insider. The hardware is the best in the market of windows phone and give you the snappiest performance after future firmware and OS updates.

Ye it does have a quad core (2x2.15 GHz Kryo & 2x1.6 GHz Kryo) snapdragon 820 processor. with an Adreno 530 GPU. Its a beast in simple terms. Just hold on, this guy needs more updates to reveal the full potential. ;)

Honestly I have a feeling it will never reach its full potential considering how far behind it is. Again, it's slower than my 3 year old 1520. I will keep using it, but I am considering the $800 a write off.

Not sure how you can say that, but oh well. The 1520 was good. IMO the best WP previously. The 950xl was a side step that got better with RS1. The X3 is also a side step that only showed a step up after the new firmware. Daniel mentioned that it runs better on RS2. For those of you that haven't tried it on RS2, Daniel speaks the truth.

The Clear truth, according to me :-), after the first Firmware, this is the device I thought I was getting last week. Its clear an additional Firmware is required to smooth out the ruffles, still.

To make clear comparisons, the Note 7, iPhone 7, all have their first few weeks of issues. None are immune. Why can you not allow the same here? Even the 1520 was NOT great out of box. It took several updates and several firmware updates to reach the current state.

If you want to offer a true comparison, put all the apples in the same basket...

Not sure how you can say that, but oh well. The 1520 was good. IMO the best WP previously. The 950xl was a side step that got better with RS1. The X3 is also a side step that only showed a step up after the new firmware. Daniel mentioned that it runs better on RS2. For those of you that haven't tried it on RS2, Daniel speaks the truth.

The Clear truth, according to me :-), after the first Firmware, this is the device I thought I was getting last week. Its clear an additional Firmware is required to smooth out the ruffles, still.

To make clear comparisons, the Note 7, iPhone 7, all have their first few weeks of issues. None are immune. Why can you not allow the same here? Even the 1520 was NOT great out of box. It took several updates and several firmware updates to reach the current state.

If you want to offer a true comparison, put all the apples in the same basket...

Just sayin
PS

When you say runs better on RS2 - for me, it absolutely did not. Though, I only got the official RS1 update last night. So maybe now, having the base right, going up to RS2 via the fast ring would yield better results. Is that what you have done?

I got the updates last night... it is definitely smoother. Since how Windows Phone disguises some of the "speed" of the phone, opening and flipped between applications may not appear "fast" or "slow" but mostly the same. It's kind of a weird deal, but brilliant from a software developers point of view.

My take is in time the X3 will just crush everything else in Continuum to make it the "PC" that HP wants it to be. As others have said here, more software optimizations need to be done (Microsoft, HP, and third parties (like Citrix) being responsible for this work), so that will take some time. Especially now that this is a hardcore business corporate device, there will be release schedules and whatnot to adhere to. It all depends how fast MS and HP (primarily) want to push it. (Hopefully pretty fast!)

The 1520 is the most polished right now as it's been updated a zillion times. The 950 is probably next, and the X3 is the least polished. Pick the phone that works best with your style and budget.

First, following the Preview path to get to RS1. Then eventually jumping to the fast ring for RS2.

With the firmware, I didn't hesitate. Using WMRT, I started clean, took all the updates, then moved Insider to Preview and took the 221 update. I don't usually care what the cost of install is. It's my belief that a clean install always ends up better...so with the firmware, I started clean and moved up from there.

How is the fast ring phone working? Back to pre-AU performance or does it look like they merged the branches with all the optimizations and software for the X3?

RS2 is shockingly stable; honestly, you can barely tell the difference between RS1 and RS2. No battery issues, no lockups, etc. I say go for it even if at this stage there is little reason (besides SMS/Skype thing) and new WiFi settings.

This applies for PC and Mobile too. I think RS2 is more about adding things and less about refactoring core components. It's not like a beta build of Threshold 1 or anything, not even close to that.

I also have been pleased with the reliability of the RS2 releases. I held back on the first two -- 14905 and 14913, if I recall, but I may have that wrong. Then I jumped in and have been riding up on the subsequent Fast Ring release versions with no problems big enough to make me want to roll back. My biggest happiness is that the Store apps tied to Fast Ring enrollment really seem to making progress toward enhanced capacity and smoother operation.